Minor Fixes to Underpowered Cards

[aquestrion]

Turn one QC akiros hammer back center move forward one space and cast a blood spine wall in between NC and FC ZONES (extended to top of NC if felt that they would drop fog bank right in front of the hamma) is exactly what play I'm meaning with a follow up wall right in front of the hamma

[aquestrion]

This is of course if you start in bottom corner

[Zuberi]

For Akiro's Hammer, we could give it an Enchantment or Conjuration that gave it the Indirect Trait.

[baronzaltor]

Arkio's Hammer would also be better if its attack wasn't so lopsided.

Most conjurations are high-mid armor with low-mid health.   (battle forges, temples, idols, etc)

8 dice with 0 pierce isn't as consistent for damage dealing as Ballista's 5 dice with 3 pierce.

Arkiro's Hammer will do more damage vs low armor plants and such, but in most cases Ballista's attack is better at destroying structures.

[Aylin]

For Akiro's Hammer, we could give it an Enchantment or Conjuration that gave it the Indirect Trait.

That would work

[DeckBuilder]

What a great OP that I've missed!

I agree with all those examples. In fact, I'd go further and make Trolls War 3. If it's a humanoid, it's called a Soldier and is not part of Nature which is Animal or Plant (not really happy with Felella, faerie magic is arcane?). If it has a weapon, it is a Soldier. Trolls are a humanoid Warrior race. They are not Nature, just like regenerating Hydra and Gorgon are not Nature but mythological Arcane.

Spider should be an Animal. Barracks should be upgraded. Gate to Hell. There are just too many examples.

Nobody ever mentions the obsolete under-powered cards because they are just wasted opportunities, reducing the pool of creative competitive builds.

I would suggest you convince your local meta to adopt your changes. But such house rules to bring these cards into the game would be seen as sacrilegious by purists. So I better not.

Great OP, Aylin.

[baronzaltor]

If Goblin Bomber was a little more worth the effort, he could have had some neat synergy with Rise Again/Animate Dead for double blasting them.

[sIKE]

I had a bomber go off one time after an attack from Adramelech, do some good damage on both the Lord of Fire and his Agro Warlock. It Slammed the Warlord and Stunned the Demon putting him on the ground. I jumped at the opportunity and beat the crap (but didn't quite kill it). My opponent was very displeased. My mage to some damage too, but managed to avoid any effect. They make quite nasty guards if you are willing to take the same damage yourself.

[Aylin]

What a great OP that I've missed!

I agree with all those examples. In fact, I'd go further and make Trolls War 3. If it's a humanoid, it's called a Soldier and is not part of Nature which is Animal or Plant (not really happy with Felella, faerie magic is arcane?). If it has a weapon, it is a Soldier. Trolls are a humanoid Warrior race. They are not Nature, just like regenerating Hydra and Gorgon are not Nature but mythological Arcane.

Spider should be an Animal. Barracks should be upgraded. Gate to Hell. There are just too many examples.

I can almost sorta see why they wanted Bridge Troll to have some nature...but it does feel more natural as just plain War.

I definitely agree that Spider should be an animal...being in the kingdom Animalia and all. Not entirely sure how to fix Gate to Hell (aside from more level 2 demons and lowering the level from 6 to 4 or 5).

Nobody ever mentions the obsolete under-powered cards because they are just wasted opportunities, reducing the pool of creative competitive builds.

I would suggest you convince your local meta to adopt your changes. But such house rules to bring these cards into the game would be seen as sacrilegious by purists. So I better not.

Great OP, Aylin.

I think I will try to convince my meta to try the changes. They would need playtesting anyway.

The argument that such changes would make the game more difficult to learn or remember is probably the one I have the most sympathy for, but I still can't help feeling that having so many cards be useless (or bordering on useless) violates the spirit of the game already.

[Wildhorn]

For Earth Elemental, the simple addition of Vigilant trait would fix him.

[lettucemode]

Torn on this. As this is a physical game, not digital, the best way to fix these underpowered cards is to release new cards instead of errata-ing old ones. This minimizes disruption and brings the underpowered cards back up to playable. However some things, like Akiro's Battle Cry or Barracks-deploying-to-Outposts, really seem like they should be errata'd into playability.

Here's some ideas for the non-errata route:

Akiro's Hammer
Release a new cheap Goblin creature. 6 mana, quick action to cast, 1 attack, ranged defense on 7+, 4 life, no armor. "All friendly conjurations in Goblin Surveyor's zone gain the Indirect trait."

Alternatively, make the Holy Strike promo (target creature's next attack gains Ethereal) a Command so the Warlord can deal with the Fog Bank easily.

War Sledge
Release a cheap War enchantment that can target and buff weapons.

Gate to Hell
I was actually thinking that the new female Warlock would have abilities that could help with this.

Haste: Warlock may take 3 damage to make any full action as a quick action instead.
Mana Strain: Warlock may pay 2 less mana for any effect she controls. If she does, she gains Channeling -3 until the next Upkeep phase.

More demons would increase Gate's playability as well.

[Aylin]

The incantation you mention would need to give a superior benefit if the weapon was two-handed, or it wouldn't really change much.

[Drac]

Gate to Hell can easily be made more relevant if there were more demons to choose from.  I can actually envision a demon swarm approaching the enemies doorstep... then BAM!  Melee +1 to all demons.

Tactically, the 12 mana to cast could actually come out a little on the cheap side just from the threat of the follow up burn to most of the board.

[Boocheck]

I hope that "old" cards will not be forgotten just because some "cooler" cards will show up in FiF or PvS. I agree on all those cards mentioned, that they need some "change" and i didnt see a solution in additional cards which will make old cards functional. I bought every MW product and i am using fully 90% of all cards From that 10% are those cards i didnt use because i dont play in certain way. Bad cards could be counted just by using fingers (less then 10). It is sad, that most cards belong to orc warlord.

I didnt see too much problem, in printing errated cards and putting them into sleves together with "old"card. Also, most of mage wars players i met so far, had no problem accepting new informations, faq and erratas.

Akiros hammer - indirect + piercing would be a cool solution.
Akiros cry - make it cheaper or more powerful
Goblin Bomber - explode as a quick action?
War Sledge - daze also for quick attack and daze + stun on double. As mentioned above, it is a two handed weapon = no chance to use wands or staffs or second melee weapon or shield.

and noone mentioned Animal kinship

What about small experiment just release errata cards for my country, and if everything will goes well, spread it into the rest of the world I would really like to see my Orc Warlord playable instead of be forgotten

[echephron]

I maintainn the best fix to poor cards is new cards with good synergy.
for Akiro's Hammer, I propose:

Surly, The Dwarven Engineer
Same everything as Otto except:
instead of repairing conjurations, as a full action it can add a load token to a war machine in its zone. for this turn, the siege weapon has indirect.

And now that there are other war weapons, I am ok with War Sledge being a niche weapon for the sweeping.